Sticking with famous last words, whose conclusion to his suicide note was "Nobody will ever know I existed. Nothing to leave behind me. Nothing to pass on. Nobody to mourn me. That's the bitterest blow of all." His pessimism was unfounded as a 2002 BBC public poll voted him number 1 of all time in his chosen field over thirty years after his death.

"It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open."